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Hood’s Drift restoration: a collaborative effort to preserve cultural heritage

15 Sep 24

Sustainability

Published in our 2024 Annual Review

Hood’s Drift, which sits within the OneFortyOne plantation in Kongorong East, South Australia, is a culturally significant site and one of 60 registered Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Sites within our Green Triangle Forest estates.

The remaining stand of Pinaster Pines at the peak of Hood’s Drift

Background

Pine trees were first planted at the site in the mid-1940s to minimise soil erosion and sand drifts. Much of that initial plantation was destroyed in the 1959 Kongorong fire. Remarkably, Hood’s Drift was untouched. The burnt-out plantation was replanted in 1962 and while many trees failed to grow in the hard surface, a stand of Pinaster Pine remains on the peak.

In 2016, the area around Hood’s Drift was replanted by Forestry South Australia and the land was later leased to OneFortyOne.

Cultural Heritage Awareness and Partnership

Recognising the importance of safeguarding the registered Aboriginal Cultural Heritage sites within our forest estates, in 2020 we engaged Burrandies Aboriginal Corporation to deliver a Cultural Heritage Awareness session.

This ensured that our employees and contractors could identify and protect areas of cultural significance. The session highlighted the importance of Hood’s Drift and laid the groundwork for a deeper partnership.

Janeth Mackenzie, Planning and Compliance Manager, Green Triangle Forests, explains,

“We wanted to build a relationship with local First Nations communities and approached Burrandies to work with us to restore Hood’s Drift.

We have been working on the site with Burrandies and the Limestone Coast Landscape Board ever since, and we’ve developed a meaningful connection based on trust and respect.“

Limestone Coast Landscape Board First Nations partnerships Coordinator David new, Burrandies Acting CEO Tara Bonney, and the Burrandies team with Uncle Doug Nicholls at Hood’s Drift

The restoration journey

In December 2020 Hood’s Drift was crowded with non-native pine wildlings and the site was difficult to access, so we began making restoration plans.

Guided by Burrandies’ Cultural Heritage Assessment and recommendations, we have since worked together on controlled burns to clear felled wildlings, establish a 10-metre fire break around the site, and delineate Hood’s Drift from the surrounding plantation.

Discussions about how best to safely remove the stand of Pinaster Pines without disturbing the site are ongoing as we manage the site together. The restoration of Hood’s Drift represents a unique collaboration between OneFortyOne and our community partners, united by a common goal to return this important area to its natural state.

Protecting significant sites

To ensure that culturally significant sites within our forests are recognised and protected, OneFortyOne complies with a range of statutory, regulatory and certification requirements.

OneFortyOne’s obligations under the Responsible Wood Certification (Australian and New Zealand Standard for Sustainable Forest Management AS/NZ 4708-2021) include:

  • identifying, protecting and maintaining cultural, religious, spiritual and social heritage places and values.
  • identifying and respecting the rights, responsibilities and values of Indigenous peoples.
  • consulting with the relevant Indigenous peoples.
  • allowing existing legal and traditional uses of the forest.
  • identifying and applying Traditional Knowledge, Experience, Innovation and Practices, where appropriate.

OneFortyOne complies with the following legislation relating to registered Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Sites:

  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Regulations 1984
  • Aboriginal Heritage Act 1988 (South Australia)
  • Aboriginal Heritage Regulations 2017 (South Australia)
  • Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 (Victoria)
  • Aboriginal Heritage Regulations 2018 (Victoria)

OneFortyOne acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their deep connections to land, water, and community. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people today.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori communities have a strong spiritual connection between people and the land – the wellbeing of one sustains the wellbeing of the other. We strive to build meaningful relationships with iwi as tangata whenua (people of the land/region), to be responsible intergenerational kaitiaki (stewards/guardians) of the land where our forests grow.